Fear and pragmatism in LA

Gore is doing everything he can to get moderates to pay attention to his campaign. But will he alienate liberal Democrats in the process?

by Seth Gitell

LOS ANGELES -- The Democratic ticket of Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman has been cast by pundits as pragmatic, centrist, and even conservative. Gore is a founding member of the right-leaning Democratic Leadership Council, and Lieberman is the organization's most recent chairman. This is the second "double DLC" ticket the Dems have put together for a White House run -- the first, of course, having paired former DLC chairman Bill Clinton with Gore himself -- and the conventional wisdom says it signals another step toward business and away from the traditional Democratic constituencies of labor and African-Americans. CNN political analyst William Schneider even declared Tuesday night that the Gore-Lieberman pairing was the Democrats' "most conservative ticket ever."

Conventional wisdom further says that this ticket will push disgruntled progressives from the party. And one alternative those liberal Democrats might turn to this November is the surprisingly strong candidacy of the Green Party's Ralph Nader. All of which could threaten Democratic fortunes -- even here in overwhelmingly Democratic California.

But such analysis is like a ball of yarn -- it unravels quickly when you start to pull. Interviews with scores of Democratic activists this week, from New Democrats to paleo-liberals, suggest that the Democratic Party really is united around the Gore-Lieberman ticket. For one thing, people are genuinely scared of the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney pairing, and there's nothing like fear to pull people together. But the Democratic ticket has positive attractions as well. Centrists admire the candidates' pragmatism, as seen in their advocacy for free trade. Progressives like the ticket's commitment to civil rights -- as evidenced by Gore's work with Clinton, and by Lieberman's voter-registration work in the South during the 1960s.

Closer to home Does the Democrats' obvious commitment to centrism mean that we won't see a Bay State politician on a national ticket anytime soon? It's a fair question to ask, given that the state contributed a Democratic presidential candidate with Michael Dukakis in 1988 and an influential Democratic primary candidate with Paul Tsongas in 1992. In the days since Al Gore announced Connecticut senator Joseph Lieberman as his vice-presidential pick, it's become a matter of faith among pundits and political insiders that Massachusetts senator John Kerry's prospects were dashed when Gore's campaign decided that Kerry could too easily be cast as a "Massachusetts liberal." Oregon senator Ron Wyden believes Kerry has been wrongly labeled in the image of Michael Dukakis. "John Kerry is a perfect example of the kind of leadership that has a perfect track record of helping entrepreneurs and protecting people of modest means," he says. "I think he gets an unfair rap." Wyden, along with Kerry and Delaware senator Joe Biden, represents the group of Senate Democrats in between old-line paleo-liberals such as Senator Ted Kennedy and DLC hard-liners like Lieberman. This coalition simultaneously backs worker training, education funding, and free trade. "The Democratic Party has to stand up for people without power and clout but also be technology's friend," says Wyden. "The challenge for the party is to tap the potential for the new economy while making sure you don't leave anybody behind." The Bay State's problem today in fielding national candidates may simply be one of misperception. Kerry notes that for all the ridicule Massachusetts receives nationwide, the state went for Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson over Carter in 1976, and for Reagan over Carter in 1980. And in 1992 it gave rise to Tsongas, who was one of the early important New Democrats. He also cautions against the whole business of trying to label Democrats. "You could be liberal on some things and not as liberal on others," Kerry says. "I voted for the welfare-reform bill, but I've been a vocal proponent of Head Start. I supported the trade agreement, but I support labor's notion that we ought to be discussing the environment and labor practices as part of trade agreements. If people are looking for an ideological stereotype, don't look at me." Like Wyden, Kerry says that keeping the economy strong is an important goal in his thinking -- which frequently requires a departure from liberal shibboleths. "People need to be able to think differently. You have to be allowed to think and to move with the times," he says. Toward that end, Clinton's centrist legacy has started to reorder the political scene in Massachusetts. Tom Birmingham, president of the Massachusetts Senate, recalls that state Republicans used Clinton's support for a nominal minimum-wage increase against Birmingham's plan for a greater increase. "I said to the Republicans, `Let's be honest about different politics. There are different political realities in Massachusetts,' " he says. Still, even he concedes that "the reputation of Massachusetts as a bastion of leftism is also exaggerated." If nothing else, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the 2002 Massachusetts governor's race. Birmingham, the unrepentant liberal, could end up squaring off in the primary race against US Representative Martin Meehan of Lowell and Steve Grossman, former head of the state and national Democratic Parties. Meehan, who is a strong supporter of free trade -- including trade with China -- doesn't figure to get labor support in a governor's race in Massachusetts. Grossman is effusive in his praise of the national ticket. "Virtually every issue I care about as a progressive Democrat is reflected in the Gore-Lieberman ticket," he says. The Massachusetts question isn't just a parochial one. Massachusetts -- like Washington, Oregon, and California -- is rife with high-tech jobs. To remain in office, leaders in these states have to be able to work with the new class of business leaders whose primary interest is the world economy. And as the largely socially progressive generation that staffs the Internet economy enters the political mainstream, its members will look for candidates that reflect their mix of ideological and economic needs. The good news: these economic realities mean that the prospects for a national aspirant, such as Kerry, are far from over. Should Gore win, Kerry could help himself by serving in a Gore cabinet or by standing outside the ticket in the Senate. More intriguing, should the Gore-Lieberman ticket fail to win, Kerry is extremely well positioned to challenge Bush in 2004. -- Seth Gitell

In the past decade the Democrats have used the DLC, which was founded in 1985, to move the party away from liberal orthodoxies and lure middle-of-the-road voters in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois. Cynical centrists might say that the party is using the DLC and its fiscally conservative agenda in much the same way that the Republicans used African-Americans and women two weeks ago: to put forth a mere image of moderation. And they'd be right. Remember last year, when Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile declared that the four pillars of the Democratic Party were "African-Americans, labor, women, and what I call other ethnic minorities" and designated "gays and lesbians . . . and those with physical disabilities" as the new constituencies? Sure, those remarks were made in the heat of a primary campaign. But Brazile and others like her are still operating behind the scenes. Leftists know they have a number of ins to the Gore-Lieberman ticket. After all, though no one on the floor of the Democratic convention protested when Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana spoke on behalf of welfare reform, the applause for her words was quiet at best.

The bottom line is that Gore's selection of Lieberman over someone seen as more progressive, such as Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, doesn't mean the Democratic ticket has lurched to the right in a bid to be seen as GOP Lite. It simply means the Democrats are still interested in winning November's election.

Lieberman gave centrist voters another reason to take a look at Al Gore," says Republican pollster Frank Luntz. "No other pick would have done that. Kerry wouldn't have done that." Pollsters like Luntz will tell you that the Lieberman pick is smart in other ways, too. It might help the Democrats retake the House of Representatives; they have a real chance to gain a majority this year, but as the New Republic's Jonathan Cohn so cogently explained in a recent piece titled "Change for a Buck," they will have to line up a centrist cast to do so. Almost all the swing seats are in districts where Democrats must play to the middle.

Take Southern California, where former congresswoman Jane Harman rallied supporters at a gathering at Sony Studios on Sunday. Harman was a popular Democratic member of Congress from Los Angeles County until 1998, when she stepped down to run (unsuccessfully) for the governorship. Now she wants her old seat back. But there's no way she's going to get it by trumpeting traditional liberal values. Forty-one percent of the registered voters in her district are Democrats, 40 percent are Republicans, and the rest are independents. Her opponent, Steve Kuykendall, is a moderate Republican who likes to wrap himself in the flag of John McCain.

"The addition of Joe Lieberman will give permission for people in the center to vote Democratic," Harman says. "That's how we can retake the House and win the presidency." She warns unions and others on the left that failing to support the Democratic ticket will have consequences. "Labor ought to think very heavily about who is a better Speaker for them -- Dick Gephardt or Dennis Hastert," she says. "Which Speaker would they prefer to have?"

Nearby in Glendale, Representative Jim Rogan, a Republican who served as an impeachment manager, is being challenged by a Democratic state senator, Adam Schiff. The district is largely white, largely driven by the new economy. Here again, voters in the center will make the difference. And it's a similar story elsewhere in California as well. To be sure, solidly Democratic pockets remain -- take Los Angeles, where Representative Maxine Waters is in no danger of losing support in a largely nonwhite district. But the Republican-controlled redistricting of the House created many more districts like Rogan's. In order to prosper, the Democrats must be able to win in these moderate areas.

But don't mistake this appeal to the center for conservatism. There's simply no way that the Democrats' journey since 1992 can be viewed as a steady march to the right. Look no farther than the Democrats' stances on social issues, which are dramatically to the left of the GOP's. This was on full display in LA Monday night.

The Republican convention in Philadelphia started with a young Latina flawlessly belting out the national anthem in a rousing display of patriotism -- and diversity. But it pales in comparison to what the Democrats did in putting Melissa Etheridge on stage. Etheridge wowed the crowd with her dramatic performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner," interspersed with pieces of "America the Beautiful" and "This Land Is Your Land." The message was a strong one: we not only feel comfortable giving this job to an out lesbian (as opposed to someone like Garth Brooks), but we're so secure that we're going to let her throw in some Woody Guthrie. Compare that with the message sent by Republican delegates when they bowed their heads in prayer to protest the presence of an openly gay congressman on stage to talk about . . . trade issues. Not to mention the awkward conflict personified by Dick Cheney, who apparently accepts his daughter Mary's homosexuality in private but embraces a gay-hostile GOP platform in public.

Then there's the key issue of abortion. The GOP would restrict a woman's right to reproductive choice, while the Democrats strongly support it.

"We certainly haven't moved to the right on social issues -- gun control, hate crimes, and choice," observes Representative Brad Sherman of California. Adds Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York: "The party during the Clinton administration has gone in two different directions at the same time. On social issues and gay issues, we've gone one way. On economic issues we've gone another."

Because of welfare reform, the issues are slightly more complicated with racial and ethnic minorities -- but Clinton himself is still widely popular among African-Americans. The Democrats figure they still play to core constituencies.

"What the Republicans represent is the illusion of inclusion," says State Representative Jarrett Barrios of Cambridge, who advocates for Gore with the Latino community. "I say the burden of proof is on the Republicans. We're in the Democratic Party." Barrios, who is also the partner of Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway, adds that even the DLC is far more progressive than the GOP. "The DLC has focused more on fiscal centrism," he says. "They haven't denounced affirmative action."

Further, Barrios buys the Gore line about Lieberman -- that, as a minority who has broken through a barrier, he can be seen as emblematic of all minorities. "He is a just the latest chapter in the Democratic effort that integrated the military, that passed the Civil Rights Act and every other social breakthrough in modern American political history," he says.

Kweisi Mfume, the head of the NAACP, echoed Barrios's sentiments in an interview with the Phoenix on Monday, calling Lieberman's purported conservatism "relative." "When you look at who's going to do the most for those who are downtrodden and working people, I don't think either one of them is too far to the right," he said.

Will African-Americans be energized by the Gore-Lieberman ticket? "I think so," Mfume said. "I think they're already energized. I think Lieberman's provided some real energy." The day after Mfume's comments, Lieberman went before the African-American caucus at the convention. Members of the caucus grilled Lieberman about his past statements on affirmative action. But by the end of the event, they were chanting his name.

"There are some progressives in the Democratic Party who believe that the incremental steps taken by the administration are not leadership," concedes Maria Echeveste, who was head of the White House office responsible for reaching out to minority groups and is now deputy chief of staff. But, she says, "I don't see how the most ardent leftist could criticize what's happened in this country during the last eight years." Echeveste, the daughter of farm-worker parents in California, points to the Family and Medical Leave Act and a list of other Clinton-backed bills, including increased funding for Head Start and the earned-income tax credit, that have helped minorities and the poor.

Echeveste further points out that although Clinton takes credit for welfare reform, he vetoed House Speaker Newt Gingrich's version of the bill twice. "We had to change the system," she says. "But we had to do it in the right way." That's New Democratic politics.

The truth about the Democratic Party circa 2000 is that it's not the DLC product that it appears to be on the surface. Beneath the packaging is tension between competing wings. So far, the Republicans haven't begun to slam the Democrats for putting forward a false image of centrism. (And the Democrats more than inoculated themselves against this charge by having the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Senator Ted Kennedy, and former senator Bill Bradley speak on Tuesday night.) Still, the Republicans better get used to opponents who can talk the talk of centrism and walk the walk of party unity.

Seth Gitell can be reached at sgitell[a]phx.com.